We pause in examining the Mahler vs. Rosebrough debate to consider a 12 minute video that Jon Harris put out. Harris is a somewhat popular Christian podcaster and author that has joined the recent wave of Natural Law chaps to tut tut against the concept of worldview. In this video that I am responding (it’s on TwitteX) Harris explains why he no longer uses the term “Worldview” and in explaining that he is at the same time advocating to others that they perhaps should also give up on the reality of Worldview thinking.
Now, I am a convinced believer in the reality of Worldview. I was first exposed to the idea when I was a Freshman in Undergrad and I have pursued it and studied it and employed it ever since. I’ve read a great percentage of the material written on it as coming from the various Worldview schools and naturally enough I think Harris is dreadfully wrong here. Also, naturally enough, I have an interest in repudiating the dreadfully bad arguments that are now routinely raised against it. I am convinced that Worldview thinking is an inescapable reality. That is to say that I believe that this is the way that all people think.
I would submit the following few volumes that demonstrates convincingly that Worldview thinking is inescapable;
Thomas Kuhn — “Structures in Scientific Revolutions”
Vern Poythress — “Science and Hermeneutics”
Peter Novick — “That Noble Dream: The ‘Objectivity Question’ and the American Historical Profession”
First, Harris complains about the teaching in Worldview thinking that there is no such thing as a bare naked fact so that all facts are interpreted facts. Jon just doesn’t think that is true. The classic examples that suggests Jon is in error here is the discovery of a fossil as made by a two man team comprised of a Darwinian Evolutionist (DE) and a Christian Creationist (CC). The DE looks at this fossil they both discovered and concludes that this fossil is 100s of millions of years old and is a classic proof substantiating Darwinian Evolution. The CC, on the other hand, looks at the very same fossil and concludes that this fossil demonstrates that the earth is young and that God created in 6 days all good.
Now, the fossil is the fossil. It has not changed. What the difference between this duo of paleontologists is not the fact of the fossil they have before them. The difference is the different Worldview that each man adheres to before they were introduced to the fossil. The fossil is a fact to be sure but it is a different fact depending on the Worldview of the person examining the fact. Thus, we see that Jon is wrong and that all facts though they are facts in and of themselves can only be be facts as they are indeed interpreted as facts in keeping with the Worldview grid that appraises them.
Now, we are faced with the problem of “common notions,” that Jon brings up. Jon seems to think that both believers and unbelievers can have common notions. It is surprising to me given the cultural atmosphere that we live in that Jon would want to argue for common notions because if ever a time existed to prove that the idea of common notions should not be over-much banked upon, these are those times. Take for example, the once common notion that it was not possible for a woman to be born into a man’s body. Fifty years ago we could have rightly said, “now there’s a common notion if ever there was one,” and yet we all know today that in the West we are awash in people denying this common notion and insisting that, “yes men can be born into the body of women.” What about the notion that seemingly should be common that surgeons lopping off teen girl’s breast and prescribing testosterone to women because they are really men caught in the woman’s body? At one time the great common notion medical motto was “Do No Harm,” and yet we are living in a time where that common notion is no longer universally common and so is disputed. What about the common notion that was once more widely accepted that “women carrying babies in their wombs should understand that what they are carrying are indeed yet to be birthed babies?” As you know, this is no longer a common notion but instead what women are carrying are no longer un-born babies but instead are fetuses. We could give Jon a dozen more once common notions that are no longer common. How about the once common notion that it is boys can’t marry boys and girls can’t marry girls? How about the once common notion that we don’t provide litter boxes for furries (humans insisting that they are animals) in Government schools?
The reason that these notions are no longer common is because of the Worldview shift in the West. These once common notions were once common because the culture in the West was one where those who were not Christian in the West were still influenced by Christian categories and so had, with felicitous inconsistency, adopted Christian capital (assumptions / givens) into their thinking so as to assimilate in their thinking in line with a Christian Worldview. However, as the West has departed from its once Christian basis more and more people have become consistent in their anti-Christian Worldview and in doing so have deleted a good share of the Christian capital they once embraced with the result that common notions are getting less and less common, thus disproving Jon’s insistence that Worldview thinking is not true.
Jon also suggests that there are some bare essential truths (common notions) that come through to all people. Here we say that Jon is correct but only in a very constrained way. It is true that some bare essential truths come through but notice how the Confession phrases this when it writes about the Inadequacy of the Light of Nature;
There is, to be sure, a certain light of nature remaining in all people after the fall, by virtue of which they retain some notions about God, natural things, and the difference between what is moral and immoral, and demonstrate a certain eagerness for virtue and for good outward behavior. But this light of nature is far from enabling humans to come to a saving knowledge of God and conversion to him—so far, in fact, that they do not use it rightly even in matters of nature and society. Instead, in various ways they completely distort this light, whatever its precise character, and suppress it in unrighteousness. In doing so all people render themselves without excuse before God.
Similarly, Jon has against his notion of common notions Zacharias Ursinus in the commentary Ursinus wrote on the Heidelberg Catechism he wrote;
Now, in this video presentation of Jon’s, Jon suggests that Worldview thinking can make men lazy and instead of doing the leg work research that needs to be done on various subjects, instead just rely on a Christian Worldview to answer all subject matter. Here, Jon may be on to something. Once a Christian Worldview is firmly in place one does still has to do the research but here we would hasten to add that the research includes not only looking into the historical record of this or that event (as one example) but one also has to research the worldview of the people that they are researching about this or that historical event. So, when I do the leg work of researching the French Revolution (as one example) I am not only reading various historians on the French Revolution but I am also extraordinarily aware of the Worldview that the historian has who is chronicling the French Revolution. For example, I should trust the account of the Christian Hillary Belloc more than I would trust the account of Jaures who in his title tells us he is giving a Socialist view of the French Revolution. So, by all means, we agree with Jon that even once one has a Christian Worldview in place they must still do the research on any given subject in order to have a familiarity with the subject. Still, having a well based and thought out Christian Worldview is going to give one a ladder up in being able to quickly analyze all kinds of sundry information because they can read that information and instantly spot the Worldview that is undergirding the information in question. For example, if I know before I read a piece on hermeneutics (as an example) that the author in question embraces the Higher Critical Methodology I know that the author and I are likely going to disagree at significantly fundamental points. Similarly, if I read a piece on the Russian Revolution written by a Trotskyite, I know in advance that I am going to take exceptions to the history I am about to read. So, Worldview thinking can make one lazy I suppose, but it can also make one not have to work as hard wading through all the different perspectives on a host of different subjects since he knows rather quickly upon picking up any book, where presuppositionally speaking, the author is coming from. I know from the beginning the way he arranges his “facts” are going to be in accord with his Worldview.
Before we leave Jon’s insistence that there exists common notions as between believers in Christ and unbelievers in Christ let us ask ourselves what shared standard the Christian and the non-Christian has in order to share common notions? I mean, in order to have common notions, two people first have to agree that the standard by which they share the idea of “common” is indeed shared. What we see here is that the Christian and the heathen can not even have common notions about common notions since they each are living by different noetic standards. Jon is just wrong here.
Jon, in this video, insists that more often Christians need to gather data and do analysis in order to come to conclusions on this, that or the other. However, the problem is that this assumes that “the data speaks for itself.” I have no problem with the necessity to gather data. I do have a problem with thinking that data gathered is data that is Worldview independent. We refer to our fossil example above. The fossil is data gathered but that data gathered by itself does not inductively push us towards a conclusion that isn’t already deductively influenced.
Next Jon insists that too often what passes for a Christian Worldview among many is instead merely a cultural disposition that Worldview is being (wrongly) used to support. Jon is saying here (and I think rightly) that too often Christians use the idea of “Christian Worldview” to support cultural preferences that they have become accustomed to. This is a danger for all of us. It is the case that all of us want to bend God’s Word and the Worldview that extends from God’s Word so as to agree with our predisposition. I see the same thing Jon sees here. I see that many Christians have embraced the classical Liberal order and have overlaid that classical Liberal order with the authority of “this is supported by a Christian Worldview.” However, that just isn’t so. The classical liberalism that built the West and was largely a product in many respects of the Enlightenment project was never, at all points, consistent with a Christian Worldview. For example, the pluralism, that is inherent in the classical liberal social order is not Christian in the least and to be honest isn’t even genuine pluralism. Similarly, it can be easily argued that the first amendment is contrary to the first commandment. There is no freedom of speech to blaspheme God as just one example.
However, overturning this faulty Worldview “thinking” that Jon identifies that finds people coating their errant cultural dispositions with the authority of a Christian Worldview has to be challenged by a truthful and Biblical Worldview as opposed it being attacked in a piecemeal fashion. It is the totalism of a Christian Weltanschauung that must oppose the totalism of the errant classical Liberal Weltanschauung that is masquerading as a Christian Worldview.
Unfortunately, Jon chooses the 2nd amendment to question the Christian-ness of the Christian Worldview. Jon seemingly thinks that it may not be as important to have a 2nd amendment provision in a Christian worldview, thinking as he does, that the 2nd amendment provision arose as being unique to an Anglo-Saxon culture. Unfortunately, as we have argued on this blog, I do think the duty to protect one’s self, one’s kin, and one’s castle is something that we find in Scripture and so needs to be part of a Christian Worldview among all peoples. However, there are other issues we have currently flying under the banner of “The Christian Worldview” that should be excised from a benuintely Christian Worldview. One example of that I would say is how what passes for a Christian worldview today insists upon egalitarianism. I am convinced from God’s Word that egalitarianism is diametrically at odds with a Christian Worldview and yet a major percentage of Churches and clergy in the West embrace egalitarianism in one form or another as definitively Christian.
Towards the end of the video Jon accuses those who embrace Worldview as being “Gnostic.” I take great umbrage at this characteristic. No one who is Worldview savvy is suggesting that salvation is dependent upon knowing the ins and outs of a Christian Worldview and in order to be Gnostic that is what we would have to be saying. Jon knows better than this. Instead, what Worldview thinking pursues is consistency across disciplines. Those of use who embrace the idea of Christian Worldview thinking understand that those who hold to a Christian Worldview are never as consistent as we’d like to be but we are striving to take all thoughts to make them captive to Christ and in making them captive to Christ we believe that there should be harmony that exists across the board in various disciplines.
Jon ends by suggesting that the fault of Worldview thinking is that it is too universalistic. Jon insists that he is too much of a particularist to embrace Worldview thinking that is singular, broad, and universal. We would note here that not all Worldview thinkers insist that one Christian Worldview has to be the same in all cultural expressions. We get, along with something Abraham Kuyper said long ago, that Christianity is going to have different expressions as existing among different people’s and cultures. They was a Samoan culture expresses a Christian worldview is going to vary somewhat from the way a Shona people own a Christian Worldview. One thing that the Kinists I run with understand is that since God is both eternally One and Many therefore there is going to be a Oneness and Mannyness temporally. There will be different variants of the one Christian World and life view as existing among different peoples and cultures. As such, we are along with Jon, particularists. We don’t expect all Christian peoples and cultures to be exactly the same. We do not insist that there is only one way of understanding the application of God’s Law in only one Christian World and life view. However, we also believe there will exist a singular Christian World and life view wherein there is found a harmony of interests as among the different expressions of that one singular Christian World and life view.
Jon is very congenial and insists that he is not pushing his views on dropping usage of “Worldview” on other people but clearly that is the effect of Jon publishing his reasons why he is dropping the usage of the word Worldview. He doubtless thinks that other people would be wise like himself if they would drop the usage of the idea of “Worldview” just as he has.
I merely disagree strongly with Jon and took the time to have a conversation that I hope matters.
Bret,
Keep up the good work. I read most all your posts, and find you are one of the few today worth reading. It’s important to me.
Larry,
Thank you for your very kind words. This is high praise coming from you.
I am most humbled. Pray please that many more people would delve into a Christian Worldview.
The blessings of Christ upon your work,